


Cold As Ice

by theshyscorpion



Category: Atomic Blonde (2017)
Genre: Angst, Delphine didn't deserve this, Drinking, F/F, remembering
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-08-12
Updated: 2017-08-12
Packaged: 2018-12-14 15:25:47
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 881
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11785998
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/theshyscorpion/pseuds/theshyscorpion
Summary: Lorraine thinks about Delphine.





	Cold As Ice

Empty. Alone. Numb. 

Lorraine swirls her glass for a moment, hearing the familiar sound of vodka rushing over ice, and ice crashing into the walls of the tumbler. It doesn't help the way she'd hoped it would.

She draws her head back, draining the glass with ease before setting it down on the table. She stares into the ice, seeing herself reflected in it. Alone, missing the warmth that was there for a unjustly short time before it was drained away, gone. Before she was gone.

Lorraine's hand finds the bottle of vodka and she fills the glass again. And again. And again. She keeps repeating her actions, hoping that the burn of the alcohol will dull the throbbing of her heart, and the ache in her bones, both literal and figurative. 

It's been a month. A month since Berlin, a month since Percival, a month since...Delphine. Delphine, the French intelligence agent. Delphine, caught in the middle of something she never should have been in. Delphine, dead because people loved their secrets, and were willing to kill to attempt to protect them. 

Lorraine picks up a cigarette, lighting it up and taking a drag. It's a nasty habit, that she knows, one that will kill her some day. But better than death come from the enemy. 

She exhales, watching the smoke float into the air, disappearing. But before it does, it leaves long, curling wisps that warm her body and remind her of Delphine's hair, dark and waving. She knows this is a dangerous road, a deadly chain of thought, but she cannot help herself. She refuses to forget Delphine, even though they had little time together and it will cause her much more pain to keep replaying every memory she has of her over and over again. Someone has to remember the innocents caught in the crossfire, the loved ones, the naïve dreamers. The ones who wanted to be poets, or maybe rock stars. 

And they have to pay, that she knows. She knows that in the depths of her being, just as she knows that she will be the one to make them pay. Percival is dead and gone already, no longer around to be made to pay for Delphine's death, the death he caused. 

She stills remembers vividly forcing her way through the door, worried about her lack of answer. She recalls how her vision swept through the room first, registering the limp body as a sign of danger, and searching for the killer, gun poised to shoot. Only after she was certain he was gone (yes, she knew immediately who the culprit was, she knew who she could and could not trust while playing this dangerous game) did she let her gun fall, and let herself truly see. The body on the bed. Delphine's. Dark hair mussed from the fight that had occurred (Lorraine would have known there was a fight, even if she hadn't seen the remnants of it; Delphine was a fighter). The bruise across her neck, the innocuous-seeming wire that had done the deed and taken Delphine from her. She remembers falling to her knees, gun hitting the ground as she frantically checked for a pulse, despite knowing that she wouldn't find one. The despair and the lump in her throat when she was proven right. 

That night is one she hates to remember, but does anyways. She doesn't know if Delphine had family, or friends. She knows MI6 or whatever agency she was with doesn't remember. Delphine Lasalle was a mere statistic to them, an agent dead in the field. A life, full of eagerness and hope and strength, reduced to numbers on a spreadsheet. All while Lorraine lives on in this cold, empty world that she never noticed was cold and empty until she met Delphine and then lost her so soon. 

The cigarette dies in her grip, and she drops it into the ashtray beside a half-empty bottle of the vodka. The pain of her body has been numbed, but the pain of her heart? That wasn't going away anytime soon.

If someone had asked her two months, or even six weeks, earlier if she had a heart, she would have let her lips curl into a mocking smirk. "Why of course," she'd have drawled. "Without it to pump blood through my veins, I'd hardly be alive, now would I?"

Now she knows just how accurate her answer would have been. After all, one only appreciates something they weren't aware they had when it is taken away. She had a heart, but she had given it away, stubbornly but without regret. She'd given it away to a brunette with a French accent and a beckoning, sincere smile in a world of lies. She knows she wouldn't have changed a thing, despite the pain it has caused her.

She leaves the vodka on the coffee table and moves from the couch to the bed. She lies down on the soft surface, aware that she can't stay here long, and that tomorrow she will have to move on, tracing her away around the globe and catching the ones responsible for her hurt. But as she closes her eyes, she pretends that she has warmth in her arms, and hope in her being.


End file.
